What Is Anterior Pelvic Tilt?

Pelvic tilt refers to how much your hips lean toward the front or back of your body.

If your hips lean forward, then you have anterior (front) pelvic tilt. If your hips are more oriented toward the back of your body, you have posterior (back) pelvic tilt.

Here’s what this looks like:

In case it’s not clear as to what you’re looking at here, this is your hips viewed from the side, like this:

And here’s another diagram of your hip bones from the same angle:

As you can see, there are two points on your pelvis that are of special interest here:

The posterior superior iliac spine, or PSIS.

The anterior superior iliac spine, or ASIS.

When you draw a line between the ASIS and PSIS, you get the angle of pelvic tilt.

If the ASIS is lower than the PSIS, you’re said to be in anterior pelvic tilt, if it’s the other way around, you’re in posterior pelvic tilt, and if they’re more or less level, you have a neutrally positioned pelvis.

What Causes Anterior Pelvic Tilt?

Most people say that anterior pelvic tilt is caused by a muscular imbalance between the muscles on the back and front of your pelvis (hip bone).

This sounds plausible because your pelvis is secured by a number of powerful muscles and connective tissues, including the glutes, hamstrings, hip flexors, and core muscles. If one or more of these muscles are overpowering the others, misalignment could occur.

Thus, it’s claimed, that people with anterior pelvic tilt usually just have weak or tight glutes, hamstrings, hip flexors, or abs, creating a muscle imbalance known as lower crossed syndrome, which looks like this:

The problem with this theory is it runs afoul of basic physiology because anterior pelvic tilt is a normal variation of human anatomy.

For example, in one study, of the 120 subjects analyzed, 85% of men and 75% of women had some level of anterior pelvic tilt yet none had experienced low-back or hip pain in the previous year. Research also shows that mostpeople have about 12 to 13 degrees of pelvic tilt.

Now, you could say that just because it’s normal doesn’t mean it’s okay, but research suggests otherwise.

For example, studies show that there’snolinkbetween the strength of the muscles around hips and your pelvic position, which makes you wonder just how much these muscles can affect the angle of pelvic tilt.

Furthermore, it’s also unlikely that anterior pelvic tilt can increase the risk of injury or pain when you’re working out.

Your pelvic angle changes when you exercise, so while your hips might have a natural inclination toward the front or back when standing, they will be in different positions when you’re squatting, deadlifting, walking, or cycling.

So, the bottom line is this:

There isn’t any good evidence that anterior pelvic tilt is caused by muscle imbalances or biomechanical dysfunctions.

What does cause it, then?

Well, scientists haven’t quite figured that out yet. Our current best guess, though, is that anterior pelvic tilt is probably caused by the shape of our pelvic bones, which can vary widely person to person.

A team of researchers from the University of Manchester decided to investigate this by looking at the hip bones of 30 medical cadavers.

What they found is pelvic shape varied widely. Most people had about 13 degrees of anterior pelvic tilt, but some had as much as 23 degrees and others had none.

All of these people would have stood, walked, and squatted very differently because of their hip bone structures, not tight or weak muscles.

So, What Should You Do About Anterior Pelvic Tilt?

As it’s probably not caused by anything under your control, there really isn’t much you can do to change your anterior pelvic tilt.

Don’t worry, though — so long as you’re using good technique in your workouts, it’s unlikely that small variations in your pelvic angle are going to cause problems.

That said, there is something you don’t want to do, and that’s hyperextend your back while doing exercises like the squat, deadlift, or hip thrust, like this:

Anterior pelvic tilt isn’t to blame here — this is just bad form, and yes, it can increase your risk of injury.

Now, if you’re still concerned about your level of anterior pelvic tilt and want to do something, stretching and strengthening your hip muscles can’t hurt (it may not help, but hey, if nothing else, it’ll help you in your lower body workouts).

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